WordPress Tools: MW Adminimize

Note that this is a pre-1.0 version, which means updates and changes are likely. Please also note the "Works with:" part above, which is serious. If you install this plugin with WP 2.7 or later, you could make the Dashboard completely unusable and have no way to fix it short of deleting the plugin via FTP.

Installation

When you unzip the archive, you'll find the plugin file mw_adminimze.php and a directory called mw_adminimize containing the file admin.css, which alters the presentation of all WordPress administration pages.

Upload all that to your wp-plugins directory, or upload the archive and unzip it there if you prefer that, and then go to the Plugins page and activate the plugin. That's it: you're done. The changes to the admin UI should immediately take hold.

The Changes

The big honkin' site name is made smaller and italic and shifted to the black bar at the very top of the page, along with the "visit site" link.

The "Dashboard" link is moved out of the black bar and into the beginning of the admin menu.

The link-text sizes of the admin menu and the submenu are taken down just a bit.

A border is put under the submenu to visually separate it from the rest of the page.

The "Write Post" page has some of its elements made shorter, and the stuff around the post title's input field rearranged to compress the whole area.

Comments held in moderation are given a slightly darker reddish background instead of an incredibly light pale yellow background. This doesn't really minimze anything, but I found it far too useful to leave out.

The Screenhot

A shot of the "Write Post" page, which shows the changes to the top links as well as many of the changes to that particular page. For Mike.